Ginny Weasley: Inter-Dimensional Monster Hunter
by tangledribbons
Summary: When an unconscious woman drops out of the sky in front of Draco Malfoy, he does the only sensible thing. He takes her home to meet his mother He just didn't expect her friends to come looking for her.


To all of those who say that I should be working on Chaos 2 instead of this, I say: shhhh.

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><p>There wasn't lightning in the sky, or thunder crashing, or thick sheets of rain drenching the streets for miles around when it happened. It was slightly muggy, and grey clouds covered the sun however much you searched for a glimpse of it. Which was exactly what Draco Malfoy was doing when a red-headed woman fell from the sky and slammed into the pavement not fifty metres in front of him.<p>

He stopped in his tracks in the middle of the road he had been crossing and looked to either side of him and then snuck a glance over one shoulder but there wasn't a single other person around. Or if there was, they were hiding in their houses. That's what he got, he supposed, for wandering out of the magical world into a muggle estate. Muggles. Anything weird happens, like a woman falling out of the sky and they all bloody scarper.

Cautiously, he took a few steps forward, and when the woman didn't immediately jump up and either attack him or run away, he took quite a few more until he was standing directly above her. She was, he thought, rather messed up. Her red hair was long and matted with blood and dirt and her face was barely recognisable as such underneath all of the bruising and swelling. She wore some sort of black armour that looked a little like dragon skin over an outfit of a slightly baggy, black, long-sleeved top with matching trousers. On her feet were the clumpiest black leather boots that Draco had ever seen. One of her arms was bent at an odd angle, but Draco supposed that was what you got when you fell out of the sky of all places.

She groaned slightly and fidgeted and he took a quick step backwards. When no more movement seemed forthcoming, he moved closer again and tried to make a decision about what to do. He couldn't call the muggle authorities, not least because he didn't actually know how. But he also couldn't call the aurors because wandering out of the Malfoy estate into the muggle town nearby was technically a violation of his parole. Not enough of a violation that they were alerted when he did it, but enough of one that he was sure they'd make a big fuss of it. And he really didn't want that bloody mugshot to be plastered all over the front of the Prophet again. His mother hadn't stopped going on about his pores for weeks last time.

No, he'd just have to take her home, heal her up and usher her straight back out the door. He looked again around the muggle neighbourhood and cursed to himself. There could very well be hidden muggles watching him from behind curtains or through those spying lenses they had, so magic was out of the question.

"Oh, fuck," he muttered and he bent, grabbing the surprisingly heavy woman around the waist and hefted her up onto his shoulder in a fireman's carry. He just hoped she didn't wake up to an eyeful of his bum.

"Who's your friend, dear?" Draco mother asked him when he walked past the door to the main sitting room with the woman still draped over one shoulder. Well, to say he walked is probably a bit of an overstatement seeing as, what with the walk from the estate to the manor being rather long and the woman being rather heavy, he'd actual devolved into a sort of slow stagger.

"Not sure. Don't worry, though. She might not be dangerous," he called back to her without stopping. He was sure that if he stopped he would never pick the woman up again and somehow it had become a matter of pride for him to at least make it to the nearest bedroom before he put her down. Which he did, eventually. It took a good ten minutes to go down the hallway and turn the corner to one of the smallest of their guest bedrooms, by which time Narcissa had put down her book and left the sitting room to follow her son and his guest. She wouldn't have any of that pre-marital hanky panky in her house.

Draco dumped her rather rudely onto the bed, and she stirred a little, a small groan escaping her as her swollen face was introduced forcefully to the pillow. Narcissa looked down at her critically, trying to decide what sort of woman her son had brought home this time. After Lucius… elected to spend some time in Azkaban, Draco hadn't really brought anyone back home with him. She supposed that he didn't really have many chances to go out and meet people. Before Lucius had left though, there had been all sorts.

She supposed that this one could be worse. Of course, unconscious wasn't the best trait in a woman, but she would have nice hair, at least, once it had been given a good wash. Her fashion sense could use some work, of course. All black, with that pale skin? Horrific. And the bruising wasn't a good look either.

"Hmm," Draco said, stepping back from the bed.

"What is it, dear?" Narcissa asked, still eyeing the unconscious woman.

"I thought she'd have woken up by now," he said.

"Hmm," Narcissa said. She was beginning to wonder whether this woman had been brought home for the usual reasons after all. They stood in silence for a few moments until Draco huffed.

"Well, what do we do now?" he asked, slightly petulantly. He'd always been that way. If something didn't happen exactly as he imagined it, he would revert to his ten year old self and whine until someone made things right. Of course, since the end of the war and such, things had been being made right a lot less often than they had before and so Narcissa had been putting up with a great deal more whining.

"Who is she?" She asked, lifting one of the woman's hands up to inspect her fingernails.

"Don't know."

"Well, where did you meet her?" The nails were dirty and broken, and one of them even seemed to have been torn off, though Narcissa couldn't see properly through the mess of blood.

"I haven't exactly met her yet," Draco mused, moving to sit in the plush armchair in the corner.

"In which case, how on earth did you come to be carrying her, unconscious, into our home?" She asked, exasperated. Oh, to have a son who gave decent answers to perfectly reasonable questions.

"I was walking and she fell from the sky. I couldn't call the po-lice, or the aurors, and I couldn't leave her lying there. So I brought her here."

"She… fell from the sky?"

"Yep."

"Yes, not yep."

"Yes, mother."

Narcissa nodded and turfed her son out of the armchair, summoning her book and her glass of wine with a flick of her wand. Grumbling, Draco went to sit in the stiff chair at the desk instead. He slumped into it, leaning his elbow on the desk and dropping his chin into his hand.

"We're just going to wait, then?"

"Yes, dear. We are going to wait."

When Ginny Weasley woke up, she had no idea where she was. This wouldn't have been too much of a problem, except she didn't remember going to sleep either. Or what she roughly estimated to be a good two hours or so before that, seeing as the last thing she remembered was making dinner in that little forest in the universe with all the rabbits. So she was somewhat concerned that she was suddenly in what felt like a very comfortable bed with no knowledge of how she arrived there. She also wasn't too happy about the fact that she couldn't open her eyes wider than a few millimetres. Touching her face, ignoring the way her entire body protested even that small movement, she realised that her lack of sight could be accounted for by the extreme swelling of her face. And wasn't that an answer that just raised ten more questions.

"She's awake," a male voice said and she turned towards the sound, her hand automatically grabbing for her wand. A blurry figure stood up and came towards her.

"Obviously," a female voice answered. Ginny thought at this point that she should probably introduce herself. It never hurt to be polite, and you never know, she might have been kidnapped by accident in a case of mistaken identity. She'd be kicking herself later on if this was the case and she hadn't even tried to clear things up before the torture started.

"Good afternoon," she began, although in reality she had no idea what time of day it was, "Ginny Weasley, inter-dimensional monster hunter, at your service."

"What did she say?" The make voice asked, and Ginny decided that he was rather dim. She'd been perfectly clear after all.

"Don't try to talk dear, you've been injured rather badly," the woman said and Ginny felt a cool hand press against her forehead. "Drink this."

A cup was pressed to Ginny's lips and although she tried to turn her head away, liquid was tipped into her mouth and she had little choice but to swallow. A few minutes passed in concerned quiet and the blurry figures leaning over her slowly became more focused as the swelling on her face went down. Her scratched and bloody hands began to feel better as well, although the reduction of pain in these areas made her suddenly aware of the pain in her leg. She guessed it was broken.

She cleared her throat somewhat awkwardly. Now that she could see properly, the two blonde people peering down at her were rather disconcerting.

"Good afternoon," she tried again, "Ginny Weasley, inter-dimensional monster hunter, at your service."

This time she got a reaction.

"Weasley?!" The man squealed, stepping backwards while the woman who, on closer inspection, could only be the man's mother, leaned closer.

"Hmmm. Well, I must say, you've improved greatly since last I saw you. I didn't say anything at the time, the courtroom isn't really the place for such conversations after all, but that bob you were sporting was quite awful. No, it looks much better longer. Although you must explain where you got those scars. And," she added as an afterthought, "what on earth you were doing falling out of the sky into the muggle world. I had no idea playing quidditch was so dangerous."

"Quidditch?" Ginny asked. It wasn't the most important of the questions flying around her head, but it was the one that came out of her mouth.

"Why yes," the woman said, a tiny wrinkle forming between her eyes. "You do play as chaser for the Holyhead Harpies, do you not?"

"Chaser?" Ginny asked. Again, it just came out, pushing past such pressing questions like 'who are you?' and 'fell out of the sky?' and 'can I have a shower here?'

"Wait," the man stepped forward again, apparently having recovered from the shock of her being a Weasley, "What was that you said after Weasley? Inter-something something?"

"Inter-dimensional monster hunter. Not a chaser. Which does, I suppose, explain why you seem to know me, or at least a version of me, and yet I have no clue who you are."

"My dear, are you saying that you are from an… alternate dimension?" The woman asked, her lips pursing in distaste over the muggle term.

"Well, from my view, you're the ones in an alternate dimension, but it's all a matter of perspective. Would I be able to have a shower?" She thought that maybe if she slipped some of the important questions into this meaningless chit chat, she might get an answer. And she really wanted that shower. Being covered in your own dried blood wasn't much fun.

"Oh, well, we should fix your leg first-"

"Done."

The two blondes stared in shock. In a split second, Ginny had sat up and crunched her leg back into place with one hand, pointing her wand with the other. She muttered a quick spell and with a second crunch her broken leg was straight and strong as new. She hadn't even flinched.

"So, about that shower?"

It wasn't a normal morning when Draco Malfoy woke up the next day, no matter how much his sleep addled brain was trying to convince him that it was. He was rudely reminded of that fact when his mother started screaming at the top of her lungs.

By the time he'd managed to drag himself out of bed and into a dressing gown and slippers and made his way down the main stairway, Narcissa had stopped screaming, but she was still in the midst of an angry rant. Ginny Weasley stood nearby, her red hair pulled back into a high ponytail and her skin and clothes cleaner than when he last saw her, but otherwise looking exactly the same as she had the day before.

"Mother, why are you yelling?" Draco asked before he noticed the giant circle that had been carved rather crudely into the white marble of the entrance hall. Ah, he thought. That would be why she was yelling. He couldn't really blame her, either. She had spent two weeks when he was nine trying to choose the exact shade of white she wanted that marble to be. It had almost ended in divorce when his father had told her that all of her swatches looked the same.

"Draco, dear, you're up finally," Narcissa turned cold eyes onto her son and he gulped. He didn't pee a little. Really. "I have a favour to ask of you. Next time you find an unconscious girl and decide to bring her into our home, make sure she isn't planning on destroying everything I love first, would you?"

"Uh, okay. I'll do that next time," Draco stammered, already wishing that he'd stayed in bed for at least long enough to call a house-elf with a cup of coffee first. A cup of really, really strong coffee would definitely make this situation better.

"Good boy," Narcissa said as she swept away down the hall.

Draco and Ginny were left awkwardly staring at each other. The redhead shuffled from one foot to another and Draco was a bit annoyed that she didn't even look the slightest bit guilty about destroying his mother's marble floor. That thing had been expensive, after all.

"Is she… always like that?" Ginny asked eventually.

"Isn't your version of her the same?" Draco asked, curious despite himself.

"Never met her. Or you, for that matter. Or if I did, I don't remember. I've met a lot of people since then. A lot of different versions. They all blur together a little, sometimes. You got any coffee around here?"

She spoke quickly. Almost too quickly for Draco to keep up with her. She hadn't been like that the day before, but then again, she had probably been groggy from the whole falling from the sky and getting knocked unconscious thing.

"I'll get a house-elf to bring some out. Come on, we'd better get out of the manor for a while. Mother might come back and yell some more."

They were halfway through a lap of the grounds and Draco had gulped down one mug of coffee and was nursing his second before his curiosity once again got the better of him.

"So, I'm guessing you didn't marry scarhead in your dimension, right?" He asked. Ginny glanced at him, a crinkle marring her freckled forehead.

"Who the hell is scarhead? Isn't that a muggle movie?"

"Scarhead. Potter. You know, Boy-Who-Lived. World-famous pompous ass."

"Wait, Potter? That weedy little mate of Ron's? Why the bloody hell is he world-famous?"

"Why is he - ? Wait, he's not the Boy-Who-Lived in your dimension? Didn't survive Voldemort's killing curse not once, but twice? Didn't save the entire wizarding world from the darkest wizard in living memory?"

"What the - ? No. He's just this little nerdy kid with glasses. Halfway decent with a broom, but merlin, constantly asking me to go out with him got annoying after about two years. He got the picture that no means no after I broke both of his kneecaps. And who the fuck is Voldemort?"

"Who is… you didn't have Voldemort? You broke scarhead's kneecaps? You _didn't have Voldemort?" _

"Pretty sure I'd remember someone called Voldemort. Is that even a real name?"

"Is that… I think I need a lie down."

Ginny looked around for a chair to sit Draco down in, but being that they were in the garden she didn't find one. She was too late, anyway. The blonde had fainted, hitting the grass with a muffled thump.

By the time he came round Ginny had conjured a couple of chairs for them to sit in and was munching on a scrambled egg sandwich that a house-elf had made for her. She'd asked for fake bacon, but apparently the Malfoys didn't believe in muggle fake meat products. It was an ass being a vegetarian in the wizarding world. That was about the only thing that constantly stayed the same across all of the dimensions she'd visited.

"You alright?" She asked through a mouthful of egg. Draco took a moment to pick himself up from the grass and climb into the chair next to her before he answered.

"Sure. Yes. No Voldemort. Of course, that's perfectly normal. You grew up in a world without Voldemort. There was no war. No death. No muggles tortured right in front of you. No trials. No trials in front of everyone you've ever looked up. No being trapped in a house for years. Sure. Okay. Imagine that!" He forced himself to laugh but it had more than a slight edge of hysteria to it so he stopped abruptly.

"So… this Voldemort guy was pretty… important then, huh?"

"Yes. Important. Yes. Just a little bit." He laughed again and stopped just as abruptly as before. Right, he thought, time to change the subject. This was getting too weird for him. "What did you do, then? Growing up, I mean. There would have been no training, no obsessively learning spells in case you got attacked the next day. Did you have a hobby?"

Ginny looked at him a bit weirdly, but she answered and he took this as a good sign. Maybe she didn't think he was completely mental.

"Not really. I got bored a lot. I guess that's why I got into the whole monster hunting gig. It was better than spending my evenings helping mum in the kitchen. And once I'd more or less killed all the good ones in my own dimension, well, I guess moving on to the rest of them was the only reasonable option."

Draco watched her eat the last of her sandwich for a minute before he could fully comprehend what she had just said to him.

"You were so bored growing up that you decided the only option was the travel through alternate dimensions, killing monsters as you go?" He asked, in slight disbelief. He couldn't quite imagine what it would be like to be that bored. To have so little to worry about that you actually went off and searched for monsters to fight. She was bloody crazy.

"Pretty much, yeah." She agreed happily, brushing crumbs from her lap and ignoring his stunned silence.

"Right. Okay." This was a lot for Draco to take in all at once. He liked to think that he had done pretty well with the idea of a dimension traveller, and okay, so he hadn't dealt with the whole no-Voldemort thing very well, but really. This was too much. He'd spent the last two years wandering around the manor and the surrounding towns. He hadn't exactly had much practise in taking in new information. "Right. So… why did you carve up mother's marble floor?"

"Oh. That." She accepted the change of subject readily, and Draco was thankful for it. "I was trying to get back. To my own dimension. I saw the date on the Prophet this morning and it was Ron's birthday the other day. Thought I should go back and visit."

"Oh. It didn't work then?"

"No. Something's blocking me. I don't know what."

Later, Draco would think back to that moment and find it slightly ironic. Well, he thought it was probably ironic. He wasn't too certain on the meaning of the word. He would also look back and think of the phrase: speak of the devil…

And the devil shall appear.


End file.
